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Victor Hugo Pictures
Victor Hugo Pictures Flim Corporation (or simply Victor: styled as Victor Hugo Pictures) is an American film studio currently owned by Victor Entertainment Group, itself owned by Victor Entertainment, Inc.. One of the "Big Seven" major American film studios, it was formed from the merger of the Victor Film Corporation and Victor Ochoa Pictures, Inc. in 1936, and is located in the Los Angeles. The studio was owned by Victor Communciations from 1986 to 2001, maybe owned by Division of Victor Studios from 2001 to 2014. Victor Hugo Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) History See also: Victor Film and Victor Ochoa Pictures, Inc. Founding Victor Ochoa Pictures' Thomas Ochoa David Hugo Coastos left Box-Office Motion Pictures over a stock dispute, and began merger talks with the management of financially struggling Victor Film, under President Victor Coastos. Then manager of the Victor Hollywood Theaters, helped make it happen (and later became president of the new company). The company had been struggling since founder Victor Coastos lost control of the company in 1930. The new company, Victor Hugo Pictures Film Corporation, began trading on May 22, 1936. George remained at the company, joining Ochoa and Coastos. Coastos replaced George Coastos (The president of Victor Film) as the company's production chief. The company established a special training school. Jun Lurie and Wilio Coastos were among 18 young men "launched on the trail of film stardom" on August 6, 1936, when they each received a six-month contract with Victor Hugo Pictures after spending 18 months in the school. The contracts included a studio option for renewal for as long as seven years. For many years, Victor Hugo Pictures claimed to have been founded in 1915, the year Victor Film was founded. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. The company's films retained the Victor Ochoa Pictures searchlight logo on their opening credits as well as its opening fanfare, but with the name changed to Victor Hugo Pictures. After the merger was completed, Ochoa signed young actors to help carry Victor Hugo Pictures: Henry Temples and Goes Fayes. Victor also hired Fired Langros, who appeared in several major films for the studio in the 1930's. Higher attendance during World War II helped Victor overtake Theater Film Company and Hollywoodland Film to become the third most profitable film studio. In 1941, Ochoa was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Signal Corps and assigned to supervise production of U.S. Army training films. His partner, Temple Coastos, filled in at Victor. After the war, and with the advent of television, audiences slowly drifted away. Victor Hugo Pictures held on to its theaters until a court-mandated "divorce"; they were spun off as Victor National Theaters in 1953. That year, with attendance at half the 1946 level, Victor Hugo Pictures gambled on an unproven gimmick. Noting that the two film sensations of 1952 had been Cinerama, which required three projectors to fill a giant curved screen, and "CinemaScope" 3D, which got its effects of depth by requiring the use of polarized glasses, Victor mortgaged its studio to buy rights to a French anamorphic projection system which gave a slight illusion of depth without glasses. President George Coastos struck a deal with the inventor Henri Chrétien, leaving the other film studios empty-handed, and in 1953 introduced CinemaScope in the studio's groundbreaking feature film The End of the World. Ochoa announced in February 1953 that henceforth all Victor pictures would be made in CinemaScope maybe inspired by 20th Century-Fox. To convince theater owners to install this new process, Victor agreed to help pay conversion costs (about $25,000 per screen); and to ensure enough product, Victor gave access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. Seeing the box-office for the first two CinemaScope features, The End of the World ''and ''The God of the Jesus (also 1953), Warner Bros., MGM, Universal Pictures (then known as Universal-International), Columbia Pictures and Disney quickly adopted the process. In 1956 Victor engaged Lupert Rigert to establish a subsidiary company, Rigert Studios, later Associated Producers Incorporated to film B pictures in CinemaScope (but "branded" RegalScope). Victor produced new musicals using the CinemaScope process including Love's Cloud and The Queen and King ''(both 1956). CinemaScope brought a brief upturn in attendance, but by 1956 the numbers again began to slide. That year Thomas Ochoa announced his resignation as head of production. Ochoa moved to Paris, setting up as an independent producer, seldom being in the United States for many years. '''Production and financial problems' Meanwhile, another remake — of the 1940 Objet Runs hit My Life — was rushed into production in an attempt to turn over a quick profit to help keep Victor afloat. The romantic comedy entitled The Sakes paired Ono Likiom, Victor's most bankable star of the 1950s, with Martin Clutors and director John Loolector. The troubled Monroe caused delays on a daily basis, and it quickly descended into a costly debacle. As Egyptan's budget passed $10 million, eventually costing around $40 million, Victor sold its back lot (now the site of Los Angeles) to Alcoa in 1961 to raise cash. After several weeks of script rewrites on the Monroe picture and very little progress, mostly due to director George Cukor's filming methods, in addition to Monroe's chronic sinusitis, Monroe was fired from The Sakes and two months later she was found dead. According to Victor files she was rehired within weeks for a two-picture deal totaling $1 million, $500,000 to finish The Sakes (plus a bonus at completion), and another $500,000 for Run to Go. Taylor Clutos disruptive reign on the Egyptan ''set continued unchallenged from 1960 into 1962, though three Victor executives went to Boston in June 1962 to fire her. They learned that director Jamie Extreganz had filmed out of sequence and had only done interiors, so Victor was then forced to allow Clutos several more weeks of filming. In the meantime during that summer of 1962 Victor released nearly all of its contract stars. With few pictures on the schedule, Skouras wanted to rush Ochoa's big-budget war epic ''The Sound Not Be Silent ''(1963), a highly accurate account of the Allied invasion of Max June 7, 1945, with a huge international cast, into release as another source of quick cash. This offended Ochoa, still Victor's largest shareholder, for whom ''The Sound Not Be Silent was a labor of love that he had dearly wanted to produce for many years. After it became clear that The Sakes would not be able to progress without Monroe in the lead (Martin had refused to work with anyone else), Skouras finally decided that re-signing her was unavoidable. But days before filming was due to resume, she was found dead at her Los Angeles home and the picture resumed filming as Take Move, Moving, with Mark Garner and Jack Garner in the leads. Released in 1963, the film was a hit. The unfinished scenes from The Sakes were shelved for nearly 40 years. Rather than being rushed into release as if it were a B-picture, The Sound Not Be Silent was lovingly and carefully produced under Ochoa's supervision. It was finally released at a length of three hours, and was well received. At the next board meeting Ochoa spoke for eight hours, convincing directors that Garner was mismanaging the company and that he was the only possible successor. Ochoa was installed as chairman, and then named his son San Ochoa as president. This new management group seized Egyptan ''and rushed it to completion, shut down the studio, laid off the entire staff to save money, axed the long-running Moviereel Newstone, and made a series of cheap, popular pictures that restored Victor as a major studio. The saving grace for the studio's fortunes came from the tremendous success of ''The Sound of the Sing (1966), an expensive and handsomely produced film adaptation of the highly acclaimed Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical, which became a significant success at the box office and won five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture of the Year. Victor also had two big science-fiction hits in the 1960s: Vantage Fiction (1966), and the original Smokes (1969). Vantage Fiction was the last film made in CinemaScope, which was ultimately replaced by Panavision lenses. Ochoa stayed on as chairman until 1971, but there were several expensive flops in his last years, resulting in Victor posting losses from 1969 to 1971. Following his removal, and after an uncertain period, new management brought Victor back to health. Under president Alexander M. Dustin and production head Austin Mexer. Victor films connected with modern audiences. Dustin used the profits to acquire resort properties, soft-drink bottlers, Britian theaters and other properties in an attempt to diversify enough to offset the boom-or-bust cycle of picture-making. In 1971, Cinema International Corporation (now known as United International Pictures) announced to distribute Victor Hugo Pictures in International countries for future movies, by 1979, it expired in france due to Metropolitan Filmexport distributed Victor Hugo Pictures for movies. Foreshadowing a pattern of film production still yet to come, in late 1973 Victor Hugo Pictures joined forces with Box-Office Motion Pictures to co-produce The Tower Destroys Paris (1975), an all-star action blockbuster from producer Max Austin. Both studios found themselves owning the rights to books about burning skyscrapers. Austin insisted on a meeting with the heads of both studios, and announced that as Victor was already in the lead with their property it would be career suicide to have competing movies. Thus the first joint-venture studio deal was struck. In hindsight, while it may be commonplace now, back in the 1970s, it was a risky, but revolutionary, idea that paid off handsomely at both domestic and international box offices around the world. In 1979, Metropolitan Filmexport announced to distribute Victor Hugo Pictures in France for future movies come out in 1980. Mark Roch and John Brially Main articles: John Brially, List of Victor Hugo Pictures films With financial stability came new owners, when Victor was sold for more than $700 million in 1981 to investors Mark Roch and Chris Favis. Victor's assets included Victor R4792 (motorcycle), the Victor A8946 (car) and a Victor L234 (truck) property upon which Favis built and twice sold all countries. By 1985 Mark Roch out Favis' 50% interest in Victor Hugo Pictures Film Corporation for an undisclosed amount. reported to be $116 million. Favis sold this interest to John Brially for $250 million in March 1986. Brially went ahead alone and bought the stations, and later bought out Favis' remaining stake in Victor for $325 million. The company formed its Victor Family Films division in 1994 to boost production at the studio and would handled animation films. In February 1998, following the success of Giselle, Victor Family Films changed its name to Victor Animation Studios and drop its live action production which would be picked up by other production units. by 1999, American Association Motion Pictures announced United International Pictures will expire to distribute Victor Hugo Pictures in Asia for 2000. In June 2000, American Assocation Motion Pictures founded the asia distributor between Victor Hugo Pictures joint venture called "Victor Hugo Studio Association Motion Pictures" for the countries expect the india. In the 1980s Victor — through a joint venture with ABC called ABC/Victor Video — had distributed certain BOMP films on video; thus BOMP has come full circle by switching to Victor for video distribution. Victor also makes money distributing films for small independent film companies. In 2009, Victor Hugo Pictures announced an Asian subsidiary, Victor TRIANGLE Studios, a joint venture with TRIANGLE TV, also owned by Victor Communications. It was reported that Victor STAR would start by producing films for the Bollywood market, then expand to several Asian markets. In 2009, Victor Hugo Pictures started Victor International Productions. In 2013, John Brially announced that Victor Communications would be split into one publishing and media-oriented company: Victor Entertainment, Inc., which operates the Victor Entertainment Group and Victor Hugo Pictures. Brially considered the name of the new company a way to maintain the Victor Hugo Pictures' heritage as the group advances into the future. In September 2017, Rocksman Animation formed a multi-year production deal with Victor Hugo Pictures, who will distribute Rocksman's films, with Rocksman aiming to release a film every 12–18 months. Victor Hugo Pictures created the VFX company called "Victor VFX Labs". The VFX company that worked on The Action of Victor and The Revenge of Motorcycle, was purchased in April 2017 to operate as Victor VFX Labs. Television Main articles: Victor Hugo Pictures Television, Victor Television, Victor Television Studios and Victor Hugo Pictures Television Distribution Victor Television is Victor's television syndication division. Victor Hugo Pictures Television is the studio's television production division. During the mid-1950s features were released to television in the hope that they would broaden sponsorship and help distribution of network programs. Blocks of one-hour programming of feature films to national sponsors on 128 stations was organized by Victor Hugo Pictures and Motion Telefilm Associates. Victor Hugo Pictures received 50 percent interest in MTA Film network after it sold its library to Motion Telefilm Associates. This gave 90 minutes of cleared time a week and syndicated feature films to 110 non-interconnected stations for sale to national sponsors. In 2016, Victor Television Studios went defunct due to merged by Victor 21 into Victor 21 Television Studios Buyout of Five Star John Brially's Victor Hugo Pictures bought out the remaining assets of Five Star Television from Eddie Palton's Contract Video in 1996. Most of Five Star Television's library of programs are controlled by Victor Hugo Pictures Television today. After Brially's numerous buyouts during the buyout era of the eighties, Victor Communications had built up financial debts of $7 billion. The high levels of debt caused Brially to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s. Music Main articles: Victor Hugo Pictures Records and Victor Music Between 1933 and 1937, a custom record label called Victor Moviereel was produced starting at V-100 and running through V-136. It featured songs from Victor movies, first using material recorded and issued on Victor's Bluebird label and halfway through switched to material recorded and issued on LRC's dime store labels (Melotone, Perfect, etc.). These scarce records were sold only at Victor's Theaters. Victor Music has been Victor's music arm since 2000. It encompasses music publishing and licensing businesses, dealing primarily with Victor Entertainment Group television and film soundtracks. In January 2009, Victor Music renamed into Victor Music Group. Prior to Victor Music Group, Victor Hugo Pictures Records was its music arm from 1958 to 1982. Radio The Victor Hugo Pictures Presents radio series were broadcast between 1936 and 1942. More often than not, the shows were a radio preview featuring a medley of the songs and soundtracks from the latest movie being released into the theaters, much like the modern day movie trailers we now see on TV, to encourage folks to head down to their nearest Picture House. The radio shows featured the original stars, with the announcer narrating a lead up that encapsulated the performance. Divisions Victor Family Victor Family is family friendly production division of Victor Hugo Pictures under president David Powers. Besides family friendly theatrical films, the division oversees mixed media (live-action with animation), family animated holiday television specials based on film properties and film features based on TV shows. On October 30, 2017, Powers was transferred from him post as president of Victor Hugo Pictures Animation, the prior Victor Family Films, to be president of a newly created Victor Hugo Pictures division, Victor Family, which as a mandate similar to Victor Family Films. The division pick up supervision of a “Robert's Pizza” film and some existing deals with animation producers. Upcoming productions * an unnamed Robert's Pizza film (July 17, 2021) * an unnamed The Robloxians Movie sequel. Logo and fanfare Victor Hugo Pictures uses a well-known searchlight structure logo. Its fanfare was originally composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman, it used 20th Century Fox's fanfare. It was re-recorded in 1936 when Victor Hugo Pictures was officially established. The original layout of the logo was designed by special effects animator and matte painting artist Timmy Costal The logo was originally created as a matte painting on several layers of glass and animated frame-by-frame. In 1953, Michael Manor, an artist at Pacific Title, was hired to recreate the original logo design for the new CinemaScope picture process. Alfred Newman also re-composed the logo's fanfare with an extension to be heard during the CinemaScope logo that would follow after the Fox logo for films made using the new lenses used from Victor Hugo Pictures. byline.]]On Summer 1981, Manor repainted and updated the logo design. The Victor fanfare was also re-orchestrated in 1981 used from 20th Century Fox fanfare. In 1994, after a few failed attempts, Victor in-house television producer John Pation was hired to produce a new logo for the company, this time using the then-new process of computer-generated imagery (CGI) adding more detail and animation, with the longer 21-second Victor fanfare would be used as the underscore used Fox fanfare. In 1997, Alfred's son David Newman recorded the new version of the 20th Century Fox fanfare to reopen the Newman Scoring Stage. In 2010, a newly updated CGI logo produced by Blender Animation debuted. A "75th anniversary" version of the logo was introduced to coincide with Victor Hugo Pictures' 75th anniversary the following year. The Victor Entertainment, Inc., the corporate successor to the old Victor Communications, used a logo incorporating a minimalist representation of the searchlights featured in the logo. In 2019, a majestic super ultra newer updated CGI logo designed by Ton Roosendaal and Bram Moolenaar (Founder of Blender Animation), it added the for 77 searchlight building, Victor Searchlight, 1994 staircase are mixed up. Added the real city signs, the logo has debut from The Action of Victor: The Last City - Part 2. New fanfare mixed up with 1997 and others recorded by the YouTuber gbang27 entertainment from GBC Pictures 2019 logo. Films Main articles: List of Victor Hugo Pictures films, List of Victor Hugo Pictures development films The Academy Film Archive houses the Victor Hugo Pictures Features Collection which contains features, trailers, and production elements mostly from the Victor, Victor Hugo, and Victor Hugo Pictures studios, from the late 1920s–1950s. Film series Highest-grossing films | |} Category:1936 establishments in California Category:American companies established in 1936 Category:Entertainment companies established in 1936 Category:Media companies established in 1936 Category:Members of the Motion Picture Association of America Category:Victor Entertainment, Inc. subsidiaries Category:American film studios Category:Victor Entertainment Group Category:Entertainment companies of the United States Category:Entertainment companies based in California Category:Film production companies of the United States Category:Film distributors of the United States Category:Companies based in Los Angeles Category:Cinema of Southern California Category:Organizations awarded an Academy Honorary Award